The first time around Viva Pinata was a big success, but there was no DS version. This time there is and it’s got my attention. I must admit to not playing the original very much. It was just a bit too hectic for me. I thought this time I’d give it a go on the DS since I thought it might be a better platform for it. Of course now I can’t put it down. There have been a few incidents where I’ve nearly missed my train stop because I was so engrossed in my garden.

Sometimes when the console games are put onto the handhelds they aren’t very good efforts. Spore and Assassin’s Creed for the DS are 2 games I wish I hadn’t wasted my money on. Then I go out on a limb and get Viva Pinata and I’m rewarded with a wonderful game that stands on its own two feet. I’ve not played the new Xbox version, so I can’t compare to that, but compared to other ports this is a little piece of heaven. The only other game series that has been ported to the handhelds that causes this kind of glee in me is the Lego series.

So now I’m firmly addicted to building up my garden and raising my pinatas. Right now I’m nearly a level 6 gardener and it’s been a struggle to get this far. I know there’s still a lot of gameplay left in this game, so things may get a bit intense in the garden.

Okay one thing I truly have to ask you all, how many of your games do you complete? Everytime I log onto Xbox Live you’re all already playing the new release titles. Seriously some of you have too much money to burn. Believe me I know the excitement of seeing fresh shiny boxes on shelves but come on, another thing that annoys me is how many of you still haven’t finish those goddarn games that you had been longly anticipating! At least give the game developers justice because they’ve done such a fantastic job bringing entertainment to us consumers. Wouldn’t you be a little heart broken if gamers never got around to the finale of your work? I’ve been shocked lately that some of my friends still haven’t finished Assassin’s Creed, Crisis Core, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Patapon or even Bioshock from last year!

On the other hand I know a few gamers who are very lucky to spare time for gaming leisure. Finished their games within an average of four to five days. Boy do I envy you guys! Personally it’ll probably take me about two or three weeks to complete a game with my current dedications. I still stick to my guns on taking things one by one though. At the moment I’m pretty happy plodding along with Saints Row 2 and Fable 2. Until I finish those both shall I be trading them in towards the next game in the wishlist.

So here we go again, the same problem that I always face every time we near the end of the year. When the quiet period comes to an end and everybody goes crazy in the tidal wave of new games. Perhaps I may be slow to the scene with the majority this November but I’ve got an advantage. While I’m still finishing my games I’ll be surrounded by the chit chat of the gaming trend. I’ll be keeping an eye on the feedback in the Ready Up forums and it’ll help me decide what to go for next.

I don’t know about you guys but I’ve counted at least 19 games I want. Gamers I bid you all good luck ‘cuz the month is certainly looking to be busy. I wonder which ones you’ll be going for first? Are some of you going to be storming through all the titles in no time? Let’s see what you guys will convince me to buy next.

Think of how much money this all equates to!

My parents recently decided that I have lived outside the family home for a long time now and my old room should be put to good use. I thought holding all my childhood junk was a good use for a room but apparently I was wrong. With this in mind I flew to Ireland and damned all my childhood possessions to the charity shop or worse still, the bin. A few cherished items made it into a box for the attic but I must admit there was mainly dusty junk cluttering up my cupboards!  I did enjoy seeing all my ‘pre computerised gaming’ stuff and here are two things that I had in abundance and feel are a mere step from owning a PS3.

Errrr… this a blurry picture of me on a beach near my home. It proves that I really went home and am not just lying and LOOK HOW CLOSE I WAS TO A BABY SEAL! OK, on with the stuff that has something to do with anything.

First there was the giant selection of adventure books. I used to enjoy choosing my own fate, but I was a big cheater and if turning to page 53 lead to my demise I would simply go back to the last option and pick a different page number instead of restarting the whole book as generally suggested. I loved these books so much that I even found a hand written version created by myself and a friend. It seemed that we were more taken by drawing our lead character dying in various grotesque circumstances than we were with actually developing a sound and usable story, but at least we tried!

Second to this collection was my clear love of sliding puzzles. I had loads of them hidden about my room, all of them pictures, never the dull number ones. I remember playing with these a lot, and they were a favoured toy on long haul flights to Spain (not too long) or America (really long!). Luckily my parents clearly enjoyed me demanding that they repeatedly rearrange my puzzle and I guess it was preferable to me crying for the whole journey. Oddly I only ever had one Rubik’s cube, showing that although 2D could capture my childish mind, 3D was just too taxing. I am now the proud owner of three Rubik’s cubes, not one of them ever fully completed!

I feel these toys were a natural lead into gaming. It is possible that other things played a role. Maybe setting up huge displays of Sylvanian families each year whetted my appetite for Sim City, or that typing in DOS commands made me feel really clever and if there was a one pixel game at the end of it all the better. It could even be that I am a gamer simply becasue it was available to me and games are great. However I think it was the early combination of choosing my own fate and picture puzzling that really set me on a clear path to loving those first text based games and simple point and clicks.